In 1844, the first state school for teachers and its instructor, Unitarian Reverend Cyrus Pierce, moved to West Newton after Lexington “welched on its financial agreement” to house the school. A wealthy supporter of Horace Mann purchased the Fuller house for the school. Teaching schools were an experiment that the state had agreed to fund after supporters raised a matching grant.
In 1845, Horace Mann moved to West Newton because he could not afford to live in Boston. “Late in 1847, Miss Chloe Lee, a Negro from Roxbury, applied for admission” at the teaching school. Principal Peirce readily accepted her, but “no one in West Newton would offer her board and room.” Upon hearing of her predicament, Horace Mann and his wife took her into their home.[1] (Segregation was not banned in Massachusetts public schools until 1855.)
Although local reports complained that the teaching school did not generate economic activity in West Newton, the move was credited with “rippled effects boosting school quality and student attendance from 57% in 1848 to 84% in 1884.”[2]
Horace Mann leads the Massachusetts Board of Education
When Horace Mann was selected to lead the Board of Education in 1837, the Board had little power and less funding. It was responsible for summarizing annual reports from school districts for the State Legislature and for making recommendations on school improvement. Public schools were at a low point, “stamped with the stigma of pauper”[3] and often managed by Protestant ministers. Industrialization and mass immigration of starving Irish Catholics led to growing income inequality. Horace Mann and other progressive reformers believed that good public schools could unite the new state by building an educated and moral population.
Horace Mann visited every school in the state (500 miles on horseback during his first year, “wearing out his saddle and breeches”),[4] organized regular conventions of school committeemen, wrote and mass produced the semi-monthly Common School Journal (read across the nation), and took a tour (on his honeymoon) of European schools to better understand education and how to improve it. He was especially impressed by the orderly Prussian schools: among their exemplary practices were “providing each child with a slate and pencil”[5], a structured national curriculum, and student desks, not benches.
During his twelve years leading the Board of Education, Horace Mann advocated for:
- State funding to build sound school buildings with good ventilation
- Free, high-quality public schools to unite the social classes
- An extended school year with mandatory attendance
- A common curriculum with student classes grouped by age
- School libraries, stocked by the State with high-quality literature
- A basic salary for teachers and professional recognition
- Secular instruction with a strong emphasis on morals and citizenship
- Written report cards to replace humiliating public rankings and allow families to track student progress
- Professional teacher training at specialized schools
- Supervision at the State and local levels to ensure quality instruction
- An end to corporal punishment (beatings with whips and rods) for discipline
The last two bullet points caused an uproar among teachers. In 1844, after seven years of annual Board of Education reports describing them as incompetent and unprofessional, teachers had had enough and published their own report, which essentially stated that Horace Mann had no idea what he was talking about. Teachers needed to use strong discipline; Massachusetts wasn’t a repressive monarchy like Prussia. Their teaching methods – including rote memorization, class seating based on student rank (with the best in the front), and oral examinations where a pupil was quizzed standing before the class – were highly effective.
“Horace Mann and his allies secretly crafted America’s first written standardized test in 1845 to support their belief that corporal punishment in schools did not improve student learning. They surprised grammar schools in the Boston area – led by 31 teachers who had spoken out in support of corporal punishment, oral instruction, and phonics – with the same test on the same day, and then widely publicized the poor results. (7,713 students at 13 schools took the tests.)
It was an act “heavily shaped by personal vendettas and political intrigue,” but it swayed public opinion against corporal punishment and for standardized written tests and the Board of Education.”[6]
Massachusetts Teachers Association
It also led to the creation of the Massachusetts Teachers Association in 1845.[7] (Membership was men-only, and women teachers could write them a letter if they wished to share their opinions.) At its first meeting, the MTA failed to pass a resolution in support of capital punishment, thanks to Reverend Pierce’s influence. At its second meeting, the MTA unanimously adopted this resolution:
“Whereas, An impression exists in certain portions of the community, that the Massachusetts Teachers’ Association contemplated in its origin the purpose of neutralizing or opposing the influence of the Board of Education, and still entertains hostile views towards that body, therefore,
Besolved, That if an expression or sentiment tending to produce such an impression has been uttered in any of our deliberations, we entirely disclaim it as having been expressed with any such hostile motive.”[8]
Newton’s public schools
In the 1800s, each Newton school still had a school committee man responsible for the school building (construction to maintenance), hiring and supervising teachers, tracking attendance, keeping financial records, and filing the annual report with the State. These men did the job of school principal, superintendent, and school committee member. State law required them to be paid $1 to $1.50 per day. School Committee vacancies were filled by a joint vote of the town selectmen and the remaining school committee men.
The 1840 School Committee report to the State Board of Education lists a town population of 3,037 with 11 public schools and 3 private schools. 747 children between the ages of 4 and 16, the compulsory school age. 37 youth over 16 and 67 toddlers under 4 were also listed as attending the public schools. Average school attendance was 420 in the Summer and 620 in the Winter. 90 students attended private academies.
The public schools had 9 male teachers and 2 female teachers during the winter session and 10 female teachers during the summer session. The class size ranged from 40 to 50 students, with a mix of ages and abilities. Male teachers were paid $34.88 per month, and female teachers were paid $14.50. (In 1857, school committee man Dr. Henry Bigelow spoke out against the pay disparity: “A heavy debt of gratitude is due to those who receive but poor compensation for their labors because they happen to be born into a class of whom society expects, having food and raiment, to be content.”[9]) Newton teachers’ pay was above average for the Commonwealth. The town’s per-pupil expenditure of $2.30 was below average.
“Selections from Report. Expressions derogatory to the teachers, unguardedly uttered by parents, in the presence of their children, diminish the respect of the children for the teacher; the children, when at school, spread them among their mates, and thus insubordination is produced; the teacher is embarrassed, and the school, if really deficient in good management, still more so than before…Would parents generally, enjoin upon their children regular and punctual attendance at school and subordination and obedience to the teacher;-would they notice their (children’s) progress, and examine them, occasionally, at home, as to their proficiency, and in this way, encourage and interest them in their studies, many of the difficulties, which teachers have now to encounter, would be removed, and the character of our schools much advanced.”
In the 1840s, town reports begin noting a “great need of reform in school construction” with school unfit for winter, floors that “sloped so much that the pupils could not stand up in their seats” and ventilation “so bad that after sitting with the school for an hour the visitor was surprised that the teacher could succeed at all in instruction or management.”[10] The town began to fund the repair or rebuilding of schoolhouses into larger two-story buildings.
In 1852, Newton’s school system underwent a major restructuring. Classes were arranged by age (ie, grades). The school year was lengthened to 42 weeks, and districts were consolidated into six: Newton Centre, including Oak Hill; Upper Falls; Lower Falls; West Newton, including Auburndale; Newtonville; and Newton Corner. High school teachers and classes were added to the Newton Center, West Newton, and Newton Corner schools.
Building the first high school
Building one or more high schools had been under discussion at town meetings since 1838, with no result. Cost and location were the two big stumbling blocks. In 1849, the town selectmen voted to pay tuition at private academies for students who wanted to attend high school. Then they discovered they weren’t required to by State law, dropped the idea, and went back to debating the issue.
By 1859, the population was nearing 8,000, which required a high school under state law. A letter from Horace Mann sealed the deal for one, centrally located high school on Walnut Street near the present-day Newton North. Mann stated that long walks are healthy for youth, who are “suffering from the disproportionate demands upon their brain and nervous system as compared with the muscular.”[11] As a teenager, Horace Mann walked three miles one way to attend college preparation classes with an amiable and alcoholic teacher, Mr. Emmons. This was a strain on his widowed mother, who lost a farm hand and gained an expense, and a pivotal event which led to his acceptance at Brown University.[12]
On September 5, 1859, Newton High School opened with 75 students and 2 instructors.
Next in the series: Newton becomes a City with 14 School Committee Men.
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- Messerli, Jonathan, Horace Mann, (1972, New York: Alfred Knopf) 447. [back]
- Foster, Francis J, A History of the Newton Schools, (1973, Newton: Jackson Homestead) 13. [back]
- Hubbell, George Allen, Horace Mann, educator, patriot and reformer: a study in leadership (1910) 112. [back]
- Hubbell, 280. [back]
- Messerli, 404. [back]
- Reese, William, The First Testing Race to the Top (April 21, 2013) New York Times: Sunday Opinion. [back]
- Massachusetts Teachers’ Association & Capen, Charles J. (1852) Transactions of the Massachusetts Teachers’ Association. Boston: S. Coolidge. Retrieved from the Library of Congress. [back]
- Massachusetts Teachers’ Association & Capen, 32. [back]
- Foster, 11. [back]
- Various authors, Mirror of Newton Past and Present, 1907 (Newton: The Newton Federation of Women’s Clubs) 52. [back]
- Foster, 20. [back]
- Messerli, 79. [back]
